Make everyday a Bloomsday – 28th International James Joyce Symposium celebrates one hundred years of Ulysses

Posted on: 06 June 2022

Hundreds of Joyceans to descend on the city that the writer placed so resoundingly on the literary map

A public talk on how to make every day a Bloomsday, a new documentary on the 100^th anniversary of the publication of Ulysses and Joycean musings on Guinness, the #MeToo movement and Sally Rooney are all part of the busy programme of the 28th International James Joyce Symposium being held in Dublin next month.

To celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the publication of Ulysses, Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin are welcoming hundreds of Joyceans from around the world to return once again to the city he situated so durably and resoundingly on the literary map.

The event taking place between June 12-18 will see academics, authors, film makers and composers share their Joycean research and creative projects as the world takes stock of a hundred years of Ulysses.

Over 250 academic papers will be delivered at the weeklong conference. Experts will thrash out topics including the book’s influence on contemporary Irish women writers such as Sally Rooney and Ruth Gilligan; what the representation of stout and bass in Ulysses can tell us about imperial soft power; and reading James Joyce in the wake of the #MeToo movement.

A public programme will be kick started on Monday, June 13 by author Mark O’Connell talking about living with Joyce in Dublin and how to make every day a Bloomsday. He will talk about how Joyce's work has informed and complicated his relationship with Dublin, in all its frustrations and pleasures. The city of Dublin, he says, can seem a vast monument to Joyce's writing.                                                                                                      

Also on Monday, June 13 composer Roger Doyle will discuss his piece 'Finnegans Wake: Suite of Affections' with renowned Joycean Vincent Deane. Also on Monday, the Samuel Beckett theatre will hold a talk and demonstration of the influence of the ‘magic lantern’ – a popular form of Victorian entertainment – which influenced Joyce and Ulysses.

Bloomsday itself, June 16, will be marked by a free public talk delivered by author Eimear McBride on ‘Joyce, Joy and Enjoying Ulysses Still’. This will be followed by a discussion between novelists Nuala O’Connor and Mary Morrissy entitled ‘Reimagining Nora’.

Also on Bloomsday there will be a preview screening of a major new documentary to mark the 100th anniversary of Ulysses entitled ‘Arena: James Joyce’s Ulysses’. This will be followed by a Q&A with the director Adam Low and producer Martin Rosenbaum.

Dr Sam Slote, Associate Professor, School of English, Trinity and one of the organisers of the symposium said:

“David Bowie once said that the thing he admired about John Lennon was how he made the avant-garde accessible to a wider audience. The same would be true of Bowie himself and also of James Joyce and Ulysses. Despite its fearsome reputation, Ulysses is a book enjoyed by many people all over the world, and not despite of Joyce’s stylistic innovations but because of them. Joyce uses his mastery of language to express the complexities of human emotion and psychology. His novel is not just for the professors, but for everyone, not just for Dubliners but the world.”

The full programme is available here:

https://www.tcd.ie/English/ulysses-100/